TransCanada Raising Big $ to Complete Buyout of Columbia Pipeline

TransCanada wants all of Columbia Pipeline–and they want it real bad. Canadian-based TransCanada, famously known for wanting to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast, didn’t want to be left out of the most important midstream story of the century, so they bought Columbia Pipeline Group–closing on the sale in July (see TransCanada and Columbia Pipeline Tie the Knot Today). At least, that’s what everyone thought. Little known fact: third party investors still own a piece of Columbia. In September TransCanada made an offer to those third party investors to buy them out–so TransCanada can own 100% of the Columbia (see TransCanada Makes Play to Buy “the Rest” of Columbia Pipeline). The original deal cost TransCanada $10 billion (U.S. dollars). The offer made to the investors to buy out the rest was for $848 million U.S. The offer to buy out the third party investors has gone up–to $915 million. In order to pay for everything, both the original purchase and buying out the rest of Columbia, TransCanada announced on Tuesday the company would float another $3.2 billion (Canadian) in new stock and sell off their electric power assets in New England (mostly hydropower) for $3.7 billion (U.S.). TransCanada also announced they now intend to keep full ownership of their Mexico pipelines…